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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28957305">a portrait of you and me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/madlife/pseuds/madlife'>madlife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:01:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,155</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28957305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/madlife/pseuds/madlife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For the procedure: "You can listen to music that reminds you of that person."</p><p>Ten joked, "Oh, you can just play any sad love song and I'd automatically make it about him." </p><p>But Kim Dongyoung, according to the nameplate, only managed to respond with an "Um…" and a few blinks from across the table.</p><p>"I'm kidding. Sorry, sorry. Um. I'll just probably use earplugs. Hehe." </p><p> </p><p>(Ten is about to undergo a procedure that would erase his feelings for his longtime friend Johnny. FRIEND Johnny.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Challenge #4 — Awaken The World</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a portrait of you and me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The procedure room is as spotless as a blank white paper. Not the freshly-dried kind from papermaking, but the freshly-scraped kind—markings of a pencil erased into dusts. Ten is perched on the patient table, which is white, tiptoes over the bio-based tile flooring, also white. The ceiling is white. The LED lighting. The four walls. The large tube to Ten's right (looking like a giant vanilla glazed donut in his peripheral). The technician's uniform, white. He has introduced himself as Kun. He's by the white storage, back to Ten, back slouched like the swell of banded waste papers. </p><p> </p><p>Kun turns around. "Here you go," he says, holding out a pair of white earplugs that looks like ghost-shaped erasers. </p><p> </p><p>Ten's hands cling to the edge of the patient table. His lap between his hands, canvased white in a gown. It takes him three rushed exhalations before he takes the earplugs. "Thanks," he mumbles.  </p><p> </p><p>"Are you certain there's no need for sedation?" Kun asks.</p><p> </p><p>"No, thank you. I'm good." Ten smiles. </p><p> </p><p>Kun assists him as he lies down, making sure he is comfortable, before disappearing to the control room, its door vanishing into the walls, only a faint trace of a straight line hinting its existence. Kun's grainy voice booms through the intercom: "We'll only start when you're ready. Please take your time. If you have any questions or requests, please let me know." </p><p> </p><p>Ten pulps the earplugs between his fingers. He stares at the bareness of the ceiling and says, "The machine looks like an MRI scanner, isn't it? Right?" </p><p> </p><p>"Um, it does look like an MRI machine. But they function differently."</p><p> </p><p>"Why do I need to have my whole body in the, like, tube?"</p><p> </p><p>"Your whole body reacts to some specific feelings and emotions. I apologize, Mr.—Mr. Leechaiyapornkul? Did the staff fail to brief you about the procedure during consultation?" </p><p> </p><p>"Lee! You can just say Lee."</p><p> </p><p>"Mr. Lee, yes."</p><p> </p><p>"Um. They did?" Ten chuckles. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."</p><p> </p><p>"Are you sure you don't need—"</p><p> </p><p>"No, thanks! I'm fine." Ten smiles again, even though Kun won't see. "Do you always get a lot of people here every day? For this procedure?" </p><p> </p><p>"Well. It depends."</p><p> </p><p>"How about today?"</p><p> </p><p>"There's only two."</p><p> </p><p>"Tomorrow?"</p><p> </p><p>"Around five?"</p><p> </p><p>"I bet there's a lot during February." Ten giggles. "Right? Do you get it? 'Cause Valentine's Day?" </p><p> </p><p>Kun clears his throat. "Um. Yes. Actually, yes, there's more every February."</p><p> </p><p>"Ah…unrequited love, right? Is that the common, like, reason?" </p><p> </p><p>Ten senses Kun hesitating. </p><p> </p><p>A beat before Kun confirms, "Yes."</p><p> </p><p>What Ten has gathered from the untold whispers overlaying the alleys of the city: the Dust can rub out particular feelings and emotions you have for a particular person—anger, jealousy, lust, longing, love. Anything. Ten supposed this place was nicknamed "the Dust" because they could wipe away your feelings until only dusts remain. But he overheard a stranger explain that "the Dust" was taken from the DUST-FREE label of a Faber-Castell eraser. Two reasons: the building resembled an eraser, and the Dust can erase your feelings until no trace is left, not even dusts are spared. </p><p> </p><p>Ten chuckled then. "So corny!" But he found himself often wondering, "Does the building really look like an eraser? I wanna see!" "Can they really erase your feelings? Dust free?"  </p><p> </p><p>A month ago, Ten took a glimpse. The Dust is located in an exclusive, affluent residential area as private as thoughts. The building balances itself on the swell of a wide, open road like an upright eraser. It is conspicuous among sleek and sophisticated modern homes varnished with glass walls, glass walls that capture the reflections of the sky, of the trees and the shrubs, of other houses. The Dust stands stark white, the windows blotted out in white blinds—the concrete building, incapable of painting reflections on its surface. No mounted sign to name what seemed to exist. </p><p> </p><p>"Okay… I'm out of here. Bye, bye!" Ten muttered to himself as he walked away from the building, fumbling for his phone in his jean pocket, dialing the number of the first person that came to mind. "Hello? Johnny?"</p><p> </p><p>Then rip back to two weeks ago, where Ten and his longtime friend Johnny—friend—were in a sidewalk café on a road that is tilted like a canvas on an easel, Ten clutching onto his newly-bought sketchbook on his lap. He was listening in on the conversation behind him. "I went to the Dust the other day," the stranger said. "Then I met with her yesterday and holy shit. There's nothing. Nothing. I didn't feel anything for her at all. Nothing." Ten's grip on his sketchbook tensed. </p><p> </p><p>"Hey, Ten. What are you thinking?" Johnny asked, straw between his teeth, arms folded over the wooden table, elbow next to his Fujifilm X100F camera. His iced coffee had less coffee and more glinting cubes of ice. Johnny stared, stuck in the same position, as still as a portrait. Sunbeam highlighted most of him—a kiss at the center of the forehead, along the nose bridge and its tip, cheekbones, the cupid's bow of his upper lip, his hair that parted with a widow's peak. Behind him, in Ten's eyes, everything turned into a blended watercolor of light blue and light green and white. </p><p> </p><p>Ten replied, "Nothing! Was just thinking about my, um, about what to paint? Maybe? Or like, what to draw on my new sketchbook." </p><p> </p><p>Johnny sipped then said, lips hovering over the straw, "What are you gonna draw? Or is it a who…" He gasped and leaned away ftom his iced coffee. "Is it me?"</p><p> </p><p>Ten rolled his eyes. "I'm tired of you, bro."</p><p> </p><p>"Bro." </p><p> </p><p>And now Ten is here. Inside the Dust. On the patient's table. Kun patiently waiting for him. Everything around him emptied into whiteness. </p><p> </p><p>"Mr. Lee? Are you all right?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yup!" </p><p> </p><p>"Just a reminder. Specific memories associated with specific feelings and emotions are most likely to get erased as well."</p><p> </p><p>"Okay!" Ten's eyes widen. <em> What…the…fuck </em>, in his head. He balls his fists like kneaded erasers, the earplugs squeezed in his palms. </p><p> </p><p>The earplugs are for the drumming of the machine during the procedure, the drumming in his chest, of his pulse. During the consultation he was told, "You can listen to music that reminds you of that person."</p><p> </p><p>Ten joked, "Oh, you can just play any sad love song and I'd automatically make it about him." </p><p> </p><p>But Kim Dongyoung, according to the nameplate, only managed to respond with an "Um…" and a few blinks from across the table, which was also white, as white as the monitor and the keyboard and the stack of folders and papers on it, as white as the whole consultation room itself. </p><p> </p><p>Ten chuckled awkwardly. "I'm kidding. Sorry, sorry. Um. I'll just probably use earplugs. Hehe." </p><p> </p><p>Another option: bring any object linked with that person and it would be projected onto the tube. Ten has considered his blue 8x11" sketch pad bleeding with his studies of Johnny—his feline eyes, the smooth stroke of his nose, the curves of his lips, his cutting jawline as though sharpened. His anatomy. Sketches of the little things, like his hands secreted in the pockets of his Lean Dean nudie jeans; his chest stamped with Do You Wanna Funk? on his favorite black t-shirt; his head lowered over his Rolex; his face covered by his camera, its lens gazing right into Ten. </p><p> </p><p>"Yo Johnny, can I practice doing your face?" Ten asked one day while they were strolling at the park. The park, in Ten's eyes, was smudged into tints of green and brown and blue and yellow and pink. Johnny, his focal point. "Also your body?"</p><p> </p><p>Johnny stopped dead in his tracks, mouth agape. Over the camera slung around his neck, he strapped both arms around his upper body like his sling bag. </p><p> </p><p>"Ah!" Ten slapped Johnny on the arm. "It's not like—you know what I mean!" </p><p> </p><p>Johnny laughed. "Kidding," he said. "But hey, sure. Sure. On one condition, though."</p><p> </p><p>"What…" Ten whined. </p><p> </p><p>"Well. I have this huge project that I've been planning to do. It requires a <em> lot </em> of photoshoots, in different settings, with different themes."</p><p> </p><p>"Are you like going to ask me to assist you."</p><p> </p><p>"No. Dude, you didn't let me finish."</p><p> </p><p>"Sorry."</p><p> </p><p>"Can you be my model?"</p><p> </p><p>Ten gasped. "How can I say no to that!" He broke into a pose, lifting his chin up, hand bent and wilted over his closed eyes. And then he heard a shutter. Then he snapped his eyes open. </p><p> </p><p>Johnny was checking his camera, its silver glowed like a ferrule of a pencil or a brush, like the way Johnny's small smile did. </p><p> </p><p>Ten craned his neck and tiptoed. "Hey! You sneaky bitch! Can I see? Let me see!"</p><p> </p><p>"Nope!" </p><p> </p><p>"Another reminder…" Kun is saying, voice buzzing through the intercom. "Since you don't have any music or object with you, please make sure to concentrate well. Please focus on thinking about that someone only. They should be the only one in your thoughts during the procedure." </p><p> </p><p>"That's easy!" Ten chuckles to himself. He relaxes his hands and lets the earplugs roll off of his palms. He says, "Can I ask a question?" </p><p> </p><p>"Of course."</p><p> </p><p>"Are there last minute cancellations?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yes."</p><p> </p><p>"May I ask why do people cancel?" </p><p> </p><p>"Afraid of the procedure. Afraid of its rumored side effects. Of losing memories. Of numbness. Of not feeling. Hmm. There's one who changed his mind because he wanted to move on naturally instead. Another one said she'll confess first, come back to reschedule if she gets rejected."</p><p> </p><p>"Did she come back?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yes. To bring the good news. That she wasn't rejected." </p><p> </p><p>"Mr. Tech. Mr. Kun. Am I dumb for letting my impulse control me?"</p><p> </p><p>"Um…"</p><p> </p><p>Ten did not wait for a reply. He studies the blankness of the ceiling, and imagines sketching an ovoid on its surface. Across the center of the ovoid, a vertical line, then a horizontal one, a brow ridge. On both ends of the vertical line he marks the hairline and the chin. He sets the base of the nose and the line of the lip. His wrist jerks as he imagines. He shapes one ear, a neck, refines a jawline that can sharpen the dullest pencil tips. He forms eyebrows and the fluid slant of a nose. He curls an upper lip, a lower lip, the hairline sweeping into a widow's peak. Then the eyes, a gaze, drawing him into it. </p><p> </p><p>Details pencil themselves on their own by memory. </p><p> </p><p>Ten sits up. "I'm really, really sorry, Mr. Kun. I should at least try confessing first, right? Right? Oh my. Oh my. Oh my god." </p><p> </p><p>Ten scrambles to get off of the patient table, then he rushes to the changing room at the other end, clipping the back of his gown with his hands, the coldness of the floor seeping through the soles of his feet. The changing room is almost like the tube itself—suffocating and blank. But at least Ten is standing upright, in control, hearing and feeling the hammering in his chest. He slips into his underwear, his pants, his slippers, his long-sleeved black shirt, then he's out. </p><p> </p><p>Kun returns Ten's phone and wristwatch. "Good luck!" he says, opening the door for Ten. </p><p> </p><p>Ten steps out, turns around, and bows. "Thank you, Mr. Kun. I'll be back. To reschedule or to bring you good news!" </p><p> </p><p>Kun smiles, nodding. "Oh. Wait. Let me check if the other patient is here."</p><p> </p><p>Ten moves aside. The door clicks, and it echoes across the bright, empty hallway. Kun's shoes squeak. "Oh! Mr. Suh. You're here early."</p><p> </p><p>Ten snaps his head up. The hallway is not empty after all.</p><p> </p><p>Johnny is standing right in front of them. Eyebrows lifted, lips parted, as stiffened as Ten. "Ten," he croaks out. "Ten. I, I thought I was just hearing your voice…"</p><p> </p><p>Then Ten catches the photo in Johnny's hand. A candid headshot. So close that the background is unseen. Smiling so wide at the camera, at Johnny, is him. </p><p> </p><p>Johnny looks away, brushing his hair. Kun steps back. The hallway blurs into the whitest it can be. Ten doesn't know how Johnny would feel if he sees that photo of him projected overhead inside the tube, but Ten blurts out anyway: "Johnny. Johnny. I'm in love with you."</p><p> </p><p>Johnny, in his Do You Wanna Funk? shirt and nudie jeans, bursts into colors and sighs and smiles and strides towards Ten, capturing him in a hug. "Oh, thank god," Johnny whispers. "I love you."</p><p> </p><p>"We're so fucking dumb," Ten mumbles against Johnny's collarbone.</p><p> </p><p>Johnny giggles. </p><p> </p><p>Ten leans away, reaches for Johnny's neck, and pulls him down. Their lips, only with a paper-thin distance between them. Johnny smirks. Ten winks. Then Ten hears Kun clearing his throat, murmuring a "Congratulations…I'll go…Yes…"</p><p> </p><p>As soon as the door clicks, Johnny and Ten kiss. </p><p><br/>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>first time writing johnten :o<br/>wrote this in a rush... might edit someday hehe</p><p>
  <a href="http://twitter.com/__madlife">twitter</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="http://curiouscat.me/__madlife">cc</a>
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